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Slavery In Spartacus

Decent Essays

Current pop culture always finds ways to provide connections from past events to current problems and challenges. These connections are oftentimes made in movies, The movie Spartacus directed by Stanley Kubrick portrays many connections between slavery back in 70 BC to the Civil Rights movement in 1960’s. Kubrick uses exaggeration and slightly unrealistic depiction of events to emphasis the pain the slaves felt in these ancient times in order to draw parallels to the civil rights movement and evoke connections in contemporary Americans.

In Rome in the year 70 BC, slaves were treated as the absolute lowest tier of society. Slaves were always chained when out in public, were segregated from the rest of society, had limited interactions with …show more content…

One surprising thing about the slaves back in rome time and is portrayed in the movie is that not all of them were chained and yet they still weren't trying to escape, which shows the aspect of slavery back in those times that the Slaves were more afraid of what would happen to them if they tried to get to freedom and or escape than their life being owned by someone else and serving them till they die. Also in the scene “Spartacus is Sold” we see how the slaves used before they have been bought and how slaves are taken to new masters, but what's wrong about that …show more content…

In the previous paragraph I pointed out that slaves were bought in auction within the cities and while they were used for city productions such as stone mining they never were bought while working. A true conception the movie did reveal is the slaves felt trapped and that there was no escape from slavery, when at that time there actually was, and trying to escape meant death for them and they people who may be connected to them. Also revealed in the movie was the false sense of freedom slaves felt while being under servitude of their masters, since even without chains or bindings to keep them from going anywhere they knew there truly was no where to go. The main conception of slavery at that time that was conveyed in the movie was the act of survival that many slaves had within them, where they were always looking for another way out and would do anything to not let that goal be ruined. Slaves at that time would kill for sport such as in the Colosseum and battle for their lives for the happiness of their masters and maybe further their chance of becoming free. The movie made many points to provide accurate conceptions of slavery in Ancient Rome time and used those conceptions and use of characters to make the audience feel as they were a slave themselves and enduring all the things they

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